Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Stories that the United States military used napalm and white phosphorus in the attack on Fallujah have been circulating for a year. Initial reports were from Islamic websites and were firmly denied by the United States government. But now "new information has surfaced, including hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack, which provides graphic proof that phosphorus shells were widely deployed in the city as a weapon."

A U.S. soldier had this to say:

"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."

Photographs on the website of RaiTG24, the broadcaster's 24-hours news channel, www.rainews24.it, show exactly what the former soldier means. Provided by the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, dozens of high-quality, colour close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells.

A war based on lies, the military occupation of another country whose people do not want us there, reports of torture and war crimes. Fears that our government will expand that war into neighboring countries. The lessons of history, the lessons of Vietnam, are lost on this administration. It is time to protest.